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Pleasant View Church from Goshen, IN (our home church while we were on Home Assignment) recently came to Ecuador for the first time to minister in partnership with our Home for At Risk Children and Medical Clinic in Cayambe. We had a great week together as they ministered through medical caravans in some of the newest communities that we are reaching out to, providing Day for Girls kits to the ladies who came to attend the seminar. They also ministered to the children in the Home through a VBS type time together that the kids loved. The group also continued the construction on the 2nd floor of the Home and put up about half of the walls that for the entire floor. We had a wonderful time ministering together in partnership!
Even before we arrived to Ecuador June 15th, we already had a mission team who had arrived a couple of days previously from Coshocton Christian Tabernacle in Coshocton, OH. It was wonderful to have them as we had several of our Board Members/Volunteers of the Santiago Partnership that were a part of the team: Tim and Angie Eberhard, Richard and Tara Euler and Janae Stevens. They came to help us do construction on the second floor of the Home for At Risk Children as well as they held medical caravans in nearby communities. It was a wonderful week of serving together and a great way to start our time in Ecuador!
Here’s what our bag situation looked like leading up to our trip to move back to Ecuador.
Then we moved back to Ecuador on June 15th and really everything went pretty smoothly especially considering the large amount of bags that we needed to get into the country with us without paying an arm and a leg. We really couldn’t have had a better day traveling considering the fact that it was an international move with so much stuff so we were very glad for that.
It was so nice to be greeted at the airport by our missionary friends, Chris Hoskins and Annalea Egging and then we had dinner with the Hoskins and Annalea and spent the night at Annalea’s. After that, we hit the ground running as we needed to get up to Cayambe right away to be with a Mission Team who had arrived a couple of days before us.
I’m so sorry it has taken me so long to post this update! We’ve been a bit busy these past couple few weeks with packing for Ecuador, moving to Ecuador and then jumping right into a mission team once we got here. I completed my 10k on June 8th with a time of 1 hour and 9 minutes which was 6.2 miles with just over a 11 minute mile pace. I won’t be breaking any records with that time but I was happy as it was my fastest pace with all of my long runs that I had during my training. We’ve raised $782 for far through GoFundMe for the Santiago Partnership. You can still give if you’d like to. Thank you so much for your support!
I’ll be honest as I usually am. I have been contemplating writing this blog for a while now. I know it is something that needs to happen. It is a good way for me to somehow organize my scattered brain right now. A way to be able to put into words what I am feeling even though I really don’t know what I’m feeling. That is kind of the space I have entered at this point in the journey.
This year has been a lot, PERIOD. It has been full with visits, new people, new homes, old friends, coming home friends, family and more. It has been trying new things and experiences. It has been dealing head-on with tough issues and things I would rather not deal with. It has been diving into deep rooted parts of me and trying to understand and make changes. It has been finding and understand rest. It has been about loving me for me and understanding deeper who me is. So, when I say journey, that is truly what this year has been. Now, we enter into a new space as we venture back to Ecuador. It is familiar and new all at the same time. We aren’t the same people we left Ecuador as and I know those in Ecuador are not the same as they were. The ministry in Ecuador has grown and changed. Friends have changed. Some are there, some have embarked on new journeys of their own. All is different and all is the same.
A lot of people I’m sure wonder what the transitional, missionary life is all about and why we do it. I often wonder that too. Sometimes I realize that I didn’t have things figured out last transition to the States, but now I do for this move. Only to realize that there are a whole new set of emotions, decisions and things I can’t even name that I can’t understand. Why would I cry over place mats? I don’t even USE place mats? I cried because those place mats had memories attached. They were used for countless Christmas dinners. It is a thing. But this missionary life makes things like that simple decision complicated. You can’t take everything like that in your suitcases. You can’t hold on as tightly to things as I usually might. To most, those simple things are simple. For me, they are hard. When people ask about this life. At this point, on this day, in this time, it’s hard. Period.
Simeon asked me today as we were packing yet another bag, ‘mommy, why did you start the Santiago Partnership? Was it to help people?’ I explained about ‘call’ which I’m sure to a 9 year old boy sounds pretty interesting. I told him that we followed what God asked us to do. Sometimes, at different times in my life, those few simple words sounds crazier than they ever have. To say to myself, I am following what God asked us to do when I have to say goodbye to my best friend and her family. When my son gets off the bus and cries in my arms because his heart hurts that he had to say more goodbyes. When we have to pack up and leave behind a family house that has so many wonderful memories. Packing up our lives once again and deciding what is important enough to make the journey with us and what will likely be thrown away (for instance old photo albums, antiques and bluebird houses). Do I know these are just things you may ask? Of course and that is why the decisions are made for those things to stay behind. There are not bluebirds in Ecuador that I know of. But my heart still hurts because those things would probably stay with us if we lived in the States.
Would I change the call I feel God has placed on my life? No. There are some days, hard days in ministry when my call has been what has gotten me out of bed in the morning to continue. Would I be happier here in the States? Well, I know we would be fine if that happened, but I also know God hasn’t called us from Ecuador. God has placed us there and if we were anywhere but the will of God, we wouldn’t be living life obediently or abundantly. You don’t think about your children crying in your arms because they have to say more goodbyes when you answer YES to serving as a missionary. You don’t think of what ‘home’ is or your lack of definition to that simple word anymore when you raise your hand and say “send me!” You don’t think about the guilt or the goodbyes or the problems and struggles when you say “I will go”. You just…GO. PERIOD.
That’s faith, right? Taking that step not always knowing where it leads. Going deeper in the water even if you don’t have a life jacket. Jumping without a parachute. It’s all crazy isn’t it? Faith can be crazy and scary and emotional and a place you don’t understand. I am there right now. But part of faith is knowing that there is someone that is your life jacket, your parachute. Someone that holds your hand when you take steps in to the darkness and unknown. I have seen the evidence in the past that God doesn’t leave. He is walking with us. He’s holding our hand and guiding.
For a couple of years now, I have prayed for churches or individuals who would take a large undertaking. I knew it was a big ask, but I also know our God is a big God and He cares about things we care about. A few years ago, I got connected with an organization called Days for Girls. They help:
“increase access to menstrual care and education by developing global partnerships, cultivating social enterprises, mobilizing volunteers, and innovating sustainable solutions that shatter stigmas and limitations for women and girls.”
We have partnered at different times with Days for Girls to help get the menstruation kits that they create to Ecuador in to the hands of girls and women that need them as well as through education. In Ecuador, especially in Indigenous communities, talking about your body or what happens to it including menstruation are not talked about; it is very taboo. We have been able to use these kits as well as partnering with our physicians in our clinic in Ecuador to make this topic less taboo.
All that to say, during this year of home assignment, we have been trying to talk with churches, women’s ministries and individuals to see if they would be willing to take on the task of being a chapter to help make and sew these kits that might directly go to Ecuador and our project. We have now had two churches who are in the process of hopefully doing JUST THAT! The story of how this was created and developed in the community where we are living right now is too long, but I will just say that we have seen just how Deep and Wide God cares. We contacted a lady in our church here in Goshen, Pleasant View, who might be able to take this on and she did. Laura Stern has done that and partnered with an already existing chapter that Vicki Gibson leads. They are pictured here.
Vicki and Laura
They have taken this and run with it with a goal of sewing 200 kits to take to Ecuador with their PV team in June. They are super close to finishing and the church and chapter communities have come together to do it. This is what Laura recently said:
Thank you everyone for all efforts! This project has really given us a good visual for DEEP and WIDE. It has taken many of us doing what we can to get these made and what a blessing to see it all unfold.
God has truly shown me how much he cares. He has answered a prayer that I have kind of secretly prayed for two years now and God has shown me how DEEP AND WIDE He cares that He would speak in ways I couldn’t even have imagined to make this possible. Thanks so much! Here are a few pictures from the sewing days that have happened at Pleasant View to sew these kits.
Isaiah 61:3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.
I started the Lenten season (the 40 days before Easter) with very good intentions and high expectations. In years past, I felt this holy season sneak up on me leaving me scrambling and rushing and in the midst of the noise, losing the significance, Jesus, redemption, resurrection. I mean it is one of heights of the church year and somehow I seemed to lose it in everything else in my calendar. Well, this year was going to be different. I had chosen a book that was a devotional for 40 days with podcasts and such to help bring in Lent and fully experience it (at least what my idea was). I had received materials to help lead the kids through the Lenten season as well. I wanted to give up sugar and diet pop during this season. I had lofty goals, high expectations. I wanted to go through the journey of Jesus. To understand and really to meet Him. Those weren’t bad goals or expectations, but when we celebrated Easter just a few short weeks ago, I had only made it to day 24 or so of the devotional. I made it over halfway through without sugar or diet pop and then caved. I didn’t even start the materials for the kids. I started feeling like I had failed. Once again, I failed to do the Lenten journey. But during the Easter service and the days after leading to today, I realized that God was there the whole time. I didn’t need to have expectations and lofty goals because the focus of Easter isn’t about me, it’s about Jesus. He is the same but everything is different…
Am I losing you yet?
The days following Easter I seemed to have this joy that I hadn’t experienced in a really long time. It was something new and in all honesty, a little unnerving. I just figured there would be a crash sooner or later, similar to a sugar crash an hour after you inhaled your favorite cake (not that I’ve ever done THAT!). I was expecting it and really was wondering where this was coming from. Now, I’m not dumb, I know my joy comes from Jesus and that is an inherent joy that is not emotional. But I felt that emotionally I was feeling and finally living in that perfect place of joy. The joy was overshadowed by where I feel I live sometimes and that is the failing place. The place where one thing happens and you feel like you’ve failed and then negative thoughts come in that lead into a downward spiral of negativity until you kind of plant yourself there with feelings of never getting out. Who knows, maybe I am alone in the feelings like this. But at the end of that day, feeling in the depths, feeling like I failed and sometimes feeling like the cycle is never going to break, I was met with overwhelming hope. Everything WAS different…because of Jesus, not because of ME. The cross and the resurrection took on a whole new meaning.
I was driving the kids around as kind of the last resort thing to do to try and get them to sleep. I was sleep-deprived myself and feeling really worthless with a horrible attitude (nobody has been there? Can I get an AMEN!). I had turned on music which is usually a pretty good place for me to start when I am feeling in the failing place. It usually takes my focus off of myself, which it did, in a big way. I was listening to a song called Everything is Different. Hence the name of the blog post. The parts that stood out are these:
You made a way when there was no way You covered heaviness with garments of praise You wrote a song and You’re singing it over me I feel a dead heart beating now This revelation makes me want to shout That Jesus has been sent And everything is different
You turn ashes into beauty You are for me, not against me now You found me somehow You turn mourning into dancing You turn weeping into a joyful noise Oh rejoice!
I was caught so completely off guard and so marvelously reminded of how different things really were. The joy I had felt and the failing place are all covered, Jesus was sent and everything WAS and IS different. I knew that this song was from scripture, but I didn’t know the passage and so I wanted to learn more so I looked it up.
Isaiah 61:3 says:
…and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.
Another line that lead me to scripture was the thought (seriously, think about this), that God wrote a song and is singing it over me. That the God the breathed nothingness in to being would care enough to sing a song over ME? WHAT?!
Zephaniah 3:17 says in the New Living Translation:
For the Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.”
As I dove deeper in to the scripture, Christ reminded me of so many things. You can read the whole commentary HERE
And I highly recommend it because it is amazing. But basically what I drew from it is taken from the text, The spirit of heaviness they keep to themselves (Zion’s mourners weep in secret); but the joy they are recompensed with they are clothed with as with a garment in the eye of others. Observe, Where God gives the oil of joy he gives the garment of praise. Those comforts which come from God dispose the heart to, and enlarge the heart in, thanksgivings to God. Whatever we have the joy of God must have the praise and glory of.
So, let’s go back to the car. My failing place was suddenly changed to joy. Because things were different, I was different because of the redeeming power of Jesus on the cross and His resurrection. I don’t HAVE to live in that place because He has exchanged all of that for beauty and joy and peace and praise and thanksgiving. I hadn’t failed in that moment to meet Jesus. I can’t fail at that, ever because Jesus is already here. I have already met Him and He has already changed me, I just have to live in to the beauty, joy, peace, and praise and thanksgiving.
That sure hasn’t been the last failing place incident I’m sorry to admit. But, God is teaching me to not LIVE IN THAT place, but to live in the beautiful place. The place where the mourning is changed to praise, ashes are changed to beauty, hearing, HEARING the song that Jesus sings over me as praise. Live THERE friends!
As usual, music is an integral part of the story for me. Here is the song, EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT, by Shane and Shane:
About a month ago, our Ecuadorian leadership of the project signed a new agreement to work hand-in-hand with the Ecuadorian government in our ministry of the Home for At Risk Children as well as we extended our agreement to continue the Prevention program. Both of these agreements mean that the social services department of the Ecuadorian government will be financially supporting the project in these two different facets so this is extremely exciting news. Congratulations to our Project Coordinator, Rolando Escola, as his leadership and negotiation skills has brought about this new development.
Recently, our project in Ecuador held another women’s medical caravan; this time in the amazon, also called the jungle region of the country. This week’s team was made up of Ecuadoran doctors (including doctors from our clinic in Cayambe), missionary women, and women from the local and national women’s organization of the Ecuadoran Covenant church. We served two communities and provided medical, dental, and counseling care. One of the communities that we worked with only have medical providers two a month and the rest of the time they have to travel 1-2 hours for any type of care. We had great week serving alongside women from another part of the country.
A little over a month ago our project had the opportunity to serve alongside a group dental students from Indiana University School of Dentistry. They come each year to work in the communities in and around Cayambe. This year the group consisted of 10 students, 5 dentists, and one person who organizes and cleans equipment. They worked in three different locations in the area, working with primarily a Kichwa population. They saw a total of 229 patients throughout the week and provided fluoride treatments to around 500 local children. We had a great week of working together!
I’ll be honest as I usually am. I have been contemplating writing this blog for a while now. I know it is something that needs to happen. It is a good way for me to somehow organize my scattered brain right now. A way to be able to put into words what I am feeling even though I really don’t know what I’m feeling. That is kind of the space I have entered at this point in the journey.
The Santiago Partnership
